


no unread messages

by warfare



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 07:03:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5082253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warfare/pseuds/warfare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kageyama also remembers that he'd failed utterly at getting to talk to him. He'd been baffled about it at the time; what kind of setter doesn't want to talk about setting? But maybe this is the answer. Maybe Nekoma's setter - ("<i>Kenma</i>," Hinata chides frustratedly the third or fourth time he says it, “his name is <i>Kenma</i>") - maybe Kenma-san is just bad face-to-face. Kageyama can understand that, to some extent, although he doesn't quite understand why that would extend to talking to him about volleyball, but fine. He can accommodate this, if that's what it takes. He asks for Kenma's contact information immediately. Hinata copies it into his phone with a weird, sour face, muttering, "I mean it, Kageyama, you better not be a jerk to him." Kageyama has no idea what Hinata is insinuating, and he forgets the comment almost immediately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no unread messages

**Author's Note:**

> Whatever I end up titling this, its real title is and always will be "Kageyama is bad at texting but wants to be friends with Kenma, the fanfic."

There are relatively few contacts saved in Kageyama's phone.

It’s not like it’s a barren wasteland or anything. He has the essentials, anything he’d need if there was ever some kind of problem. His mom's phone number is in there, of course, and so is the woman next door's, in case something happens while his mom is out. His dad’s work number and cell number are both programmed in, although when he thinks about it he’s never called either of them. Going down the list, it’s mostly adults - his grandparents' home phone numbers, and the requisite emergency numbers, and the school. He has the number of every coach and vice coach of every team he's ever trained with, saved and locked in, almost like muscle memory.

He rarely uses the phone, anyway. Even in person he’s never really been a chatter. He doesn’t walk interpersonal middle ground well; he tends to be either over-invested or underinvested in topics of conversation, dependent entirely on how much of the conversation is focused on volleyball, and small talk has always eluded him. He doesn't understand the point, not really, and he's not good at it. He's even worse at it over the phone than he is in person. That in combination with his general trouble making friends due to his reportedly “difficult” personality means he rarely uses his phone for more than basic day to day communication, and there's little need to give his information out. He’s never traded emails or text messages or phone numbers with a classmate. Honestly, he’s never really had a classmate he wanted to talk to outside of the volleyball team, because what would he even want to talk about besides volleyball? Until he'd come to Karasuno he'd never really thought about sharing contact information with his teammates. 

He has a few old teammates’ numbers. Iwaizumi is programmed into his address book, a relic of middle school, transferred over from Kageyama’s old flip phone. He was the most reliable source of information about changes to practice schedules, and Kageyama assumed he wouldn’t text him about pointless stuff, or really anything besides specific practice information, because he once overheard Iwaizumi-san complaining about people who texted too much about stupid shit and assumed that meant that he was indifferent to phones, too. He only has a handful of messages from him, all times and places, none longer than a sentence. He keeps them saved for the longest time, anyway, until they are eventually overtaken by similar messages from Takeda-sensei and Daichi and Sugawara.

Oikawa is in there as well; he'd put his information in when he'd caught Kageyama asking Iwaizumi. Apparently even with people he hates, he can't imagine they wouldn't be desperate to be in contact with him. He’s never texted Kageyama, not even once, not even to gloat. It makes Kageyama nervous to keep it, but somehow he has the sneaking suspicion that he'd be in even more trouble if it got out that he'd deleted it. He tells himself that maybe someday it'll come in handy, even though once he’d accidentally hit 'dial' by accident and almost dropped his phone in his hurry to hang up as quickly as possible, before it went through, just on the off-chance Oikawa-san had saved his number.

Other than that, though, the only pre-Karasuno contact he has is Kindaichi, because Kindaichi was the person who came after him in the team contact list, and he was responsible for contacting Kindaichi in the event of an emergency. After the last match in middle school he spent a whole night staring at the number, thumb hovering over the “delete” key, trying to place the cloudy feeling in his chest and behind his eyes as he tried not to think about how eerie the court had felt when it had fallen completely silent. Ultimately he kept the number, because there was always the possibility that there’d be an earthquake or something and the responsibility of contacting Kindaichi would fall to him. He forgets entirely that he even has the number until after their first practice match with Aoba Johsai, but when he hears Hinata’s hand make contact with the ball he tossed, sees Kindaichi’s face when he misses their combination spike, he feels like he doesn’t need to delete it after all.

His teammates on Karasuno almost immediately put their numbers in en masse. Before he knows what’s happening the handful of texts from Iwaizumi and Kindaichi he’d been saving are overcome, pushed to the bottom of a long list. Soon there are so many conversations that he can’t even focus long enough to scroll to the bottom of the list and see if his old messages are still there. He figures ultimately, maybe they are and maybe they aren’t; it doesn’t matter all that much anymore, really.

Suga starts up a group text, and suddenly his phone is buzzing constantly. The first week or so he can't quite adjust to it; he's so used to his phone being a silent brick, useful for checking the time or volleyball scores or calling his mom to confirm whether she'd said she needed hard or medium tofu. The first couple of times it legitimately scares him, but gradually the noise becomes a comforting background sound. He learns quickly to put his phone on silent mode in class, something he's never had to do before. 

If you'd told him in middle school this kind of thing would happen if he went to Karasuno, he’d definitely have furrowed his brow, and he might have changed his choice of backup school. He finds that, actually, he surprisingly doesn't mind the chatter. For one thing, it's unfailingly about volleyball; if there's one thing that unites the team, it's that they all have little beyond volleyball on their minds. Members tease each other, and chat about practice and matches, and trade training tips. In a lot of ways, it’s almost a virtual continuation of practice. For a while he just reads, but in late April he passes his eyes over a message from Suga complaining about an unusual ache in his legs. What he’s describing sounds familiar to Kageyama, and almost without thinking he finds himself tapping out, slowly and carefully,

"Suga-senpai,

I also have that happen occasionally. In my case it's stress from putting too much weight on my heels. Here are some stretches I recommend. See if they help. If so, I can show you some exercises to train yourself to distribute your weight more evenly.

Kageyama"

He attaches a series of links to videos and descriptions of exercises that he has bookmarked and presses send without hesitation, because he knows what he's talking about and there's no point in letting Suga-senpai continue to do something that could hurt him long-term.

The response from Hinata and Tanaka is immediate and obnoxious, and also terribly misspelled.

“Omg Kageyama so formal what the hcek haha”

“wwwwww kageyama is this your first text welcome welcome i thoguht ud blocked us”

Even Tsukishima, who Kageyama hadn’t even realized was in the group text, replies,

“You don’t have to sign your name, you know (lol)”

Kageyama finds the (lol) particularly irritating, and for a brief second he regrets saying anything. But then Suga replies,

“Aaah, really?! ( •̀ㅁ•́;)”  
“that's no good!! Σ('◉⌓◉') !!!!!!”  
“Thanks for the tip, Kageyama, I'll definitely try it out (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧ "

Kageyama doesn't understand half of the symbols in the messages, but he finds his irritation clearing, types out "No problem" and "like I said, please let me know if I can help," clicks the screen shut and rolls over, chasing sleep. The conversation ends there for the night, but in a few days Suga comes up to Kageyama after practice, lets him know that he’d tried those stretches Kageyama’d sent him and they’d really helped, asks if Kageyama can show him some of those exercises he’d talked about. That night Kageyama replies to a message from Daichi asking if anyone has extra sports tape they can bring in, and from then on he’s a regular participant in discussions.

Still, even with his new entrance into the world of text messaging, it’s very rare that he finds someone he genuinely wants to talk to enough to seek out their contact information. In that way Hinata is a marvel to him; they’ve known Yachi for less than a week before Hinata gets her phone number, and Kageyama suspects he might also be in contact with Aone from Datekou. For someone so dumb, he thinks, caught somewhere between frustration and a twisted kind of pride, Hinata is good at communicating with weirdos. Kageyama is lucky he’s also pretty dumb, because otherwise he might realize the implication of his thought.

When Hinata gives him an unusually up-to-date report of the schedule for Tokyo Winter Qualification Matches, outpacing even Kageyama’s favorite news sources, he peeks over onto Hinata's phone and sees a frankly unthinkable number of messages from Nekoma's setter. When he asks about it, Hinata perks up, scrolling through the most recent message.

"Oh, Kenma? Yeah, we've been messaging back and forth since that last practice match with Nekoma. We're pretty good friends, I guess." A grin cracks Hinata's expression even wider, and he laughs to Kageyama, "He's a really interesting person, you know? He talks more over messages than you might think."

Kageyama remembers Nekoma's setter, knows he's interesting. Even though he's not a genius by any means, not even on Oikawa-san's level, not really, not yet anyway, Kageyama still recognizes something in him that he lacks in himself. He remembers the feeling of wanting to figure it out and learn from it and incorporate it in his own volleyball.

He also remembers that he'd failed utterly at getting to talk to him after the practice match, before Nekoma had returned to Tokyo, and also after their training trips to Fukurodani and Shinsen. He'd been baffled about it at the time; what kind of setter doesn't want to talk about setting? But he'd also been distracted by Hinata and anyway maybe this is the answer. Maybe Nekoma's setter - (" _Kenma_ ," Hinata chides frustratedly the third or fourth time he says it, “his name is _Kenma_ , seriously, how would you feel if everyone just called you Karasuno's sett-- okay, never mind, that's not a good example I guess, but.") - maybe Kenma-san is just bad face-to-face. Kageyama can understand that, to some extent, although he doesn't quite understand why that would extend to talking to him about volleyball, but fine. He can accommodate this, if that's what it takes. He asks for Kenma's contact information immediately.

Hinata copies it into his phone with a weird, sour face, muttering, "I mean it, Kageyama, you better not be a jerk to him." Kageyama has no idea what Hinata is insinuating, and he forgets the comment almost immediately.

Kageyama sends a string of messages that night after practice, once he's gotten home.

"Who taught you setting"  
"How long have you between playing"  
"Did you train with an upperclassman of some kind?"  
"Are you Nekoma's only setter"  
"What's your training regimen? Did you come up with it yourself or did your coach give it to you?"  
"You're a pretty low jumper, but it kind of makes your feints more believable, are you doing it on purpose?"

He doesn't get a response, but it doesn't bother him, not immediately. After all, he's asked a lot at once, and he's a pretty slow typist himself, and he wouldn't want an answer Kenma-san hadn't thought about thoroughly. But the response doesn't come at all, not that night, or the next day, or the day after that.

"Yachi-san," he asks suddenly, during cleanup after practice. When Yachi startles and drops the balls she's holding, he bends smoothly to help her pick them up, used to it, silencing her apologies with a questioning look. "What do you think it means if someone isn't responding to your messages?"

Yachi looks confused for a second, then considers seriously. "Through texts, you mean? Hmm, I don't know... What kind of messages have you been sending?"

"I don't know, just questions, I guess? Where they learned to play volleyball, how they train, things like that?" He can feel his jaw setting, frustrated. "I sent a bunch all at once, he should have had something to say about _one_ of them..."

Yachi nods, doesn't say anything, but just the way she stands there and listens feels supportive, somehow. Kageyama looks over at her and thinks about how much more comfortable she's gotten around him, can feel the tightness in his shoulders loosen a bit.

Finally she replies, tentative, "Maybe they're feeling shy? I mean, I don't know who you're talking to, but if I got a bunch of questions all at once, honestly, I'd be kind of scared to answer, too." Her voice shakes a little, and Kageyama has learned Yachi well enough to wonder briefly if it's from imagining a torrent of messages or if she's nervous about how he’ll respond to her answer.

“What do you think I should do, then?” He feels like his voice rings petulant, but Yachi’s expression brightens with pleasure at being asked for advice, and she hums to herself,

“You might try talking about yourself a little bit, too? My mom always says,” she adopts a businesslike expression, lowering the timbre of her voice, and Kageyama tries to recall what Yachi’s mother had actually been like from the deepest recesses of his memory. It’s been muscled out by volleyball information, though; after all that was exams and then two training camps, and he doesn’t remember much. All he can recall is that Yachi’s mother was tall and seemed smart, and so he straightens up and listens. “Conversation is a process of give and take. It’s like a verbal transaction. You can’t expect a business partner to just give and give and never offer something of yourself. So if people aren’t opening up to you, maybe try offering something of yourself, to start them up.”

The moment she uses the word ‘transaction’ he can feel his eyes glazing over, but what Yachi’s saying makes sense if he tries to convert it to volleyball. People wouldn’t toss to someone who never tosses or passes to them, he guesses, although frankly he finds that logic stupid in an actual game - of course you’d pass to whoever was open!! But maybe, _maybe_ , just expecting someone to trust you, to give you something when you’ve given them nothing in advance, maybe that might not work.

“Has it worked for you?” he asks Yachi quietly, and she immediately stiffens, uncomfortable.

“I haven’t tried it much, myself - I wouldn’t want to bore people by talking too much about, you know, me, I guess?” She’s picking at her cuticles, and Kageyama wills himself to pay attention, even though Daichi-senpai is saying something across the court and it sounds like it might be important. “Ah, but--” and then she turns to him. He can see the tension leaving her arms and shoulders, unknotting itself through her fingertips. He can feel himself relaxing, too, inexplicably. “I’m telling you this now, aren’t I? And I’ve been on the other side - when I was still deciding whether or not to join, you and Hinata-kun and everyone talked about yourselves and how you felt about volleyball, and it really made me think, like, ah, I want to try my hardest too! So.” She grins, smile brightening her expression in a way he’s still learning to get used to. “Do your best, Kageyama-kun! I know it can be hard, but I’m sure, if it’s you, you’ll get through to this person eventually!”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he nods in response, hands her the volleyball she dropped earlier. They go back to cleanup without any further discussion, but somehow when Kageyama opens his phone later and sees there still aren’t any replies from Kenma, he thinks about the feeling of Yachi’s presence at his side and feels less frustrated than before.

He takes her advice, begins texting Kenma information about himself. He tells him how early he started at volleyball, and what his daily practice routine is, problems he’s had with form in the past. At first it’s hard to put into practice, but soon he’s comfortable with it. He talks about how he always liked volleyball, about how he's always been good at it, about blogs that he follows and pro players he likes. He sends links he’s found useful, and videos, asks if Kenma has ever encountered the same problems as him, how he overcame them. He talks about what he likes about setting, how cool he thinks setting is, how he wants to do it forever. There’s still no reply, but it stings less than before, somehow.

He accepts Kenma's continued silence for another week, even though if he thinks hard about it there's nothing that knocks him off-kilter quite like people ignoring him. Still, even though he hates it, it interferes with practice in little ways; he finds himself catching on things he asked Kenma about, wondering why he hasn’t gotten a reply, especially when he hears Hinata laugh from across the court and show Tanaka-senpai and Nishinoya-senpai something Kenma had sent him.

When Suga takes him aside and asks him if something is bothering him after practice, he sighs deeply, replies,

"Suga-senpai, can I ask you a question about communication?"

Suga seems taken aback by the question at first, grins and laughs embarrassedly, "Well, I don't know how helpful I'll be, but--"

"No," Kageyama cuts him off, serious. "This is something you're good at. Better than me." He bows deeply, ignoring Suga's embarrassed handwaving, his step forward. "I really want to figure this out."

Suga pulls him back up, smile wavering for a second before clarifying, all sincerity. "Okay, I got it, okay? Just -- don't do that here, alright? People'll laugh."

They move outside, into the late summer air. "What's up?" Suga leans against the building, shoves his hands into his pockets. "It's rare that you ask me for help on this stuff."

"I've been trying to get someone to talk to me." He explains, arms stiff at his sides. "Not on the team. Another setter." He can feel the frustration in his voice, hates how it sounds. "I've asked them stuff, and I've told them about myself, but they won't respond. I--" he clenches his teeth momentarily, focuses on the chatter of clean-up coming from inside the gymnasium. "They're different, but I think they're a really good setter, unexpectedly, and I feel like if we could just talk, we could. They could. I don't know, I think it would be nice to talk to them." He clenches his fist, briefly, searching Suga's expression for an answer. "But I'm not good at talking to people. Or making them want to talk to me, whatever. And I know they talk to other people, all the time. So I must have done something wrong. But I can’t figure it out, and they won’t talk to me."

The words tumble out in a rush. Suga's quiet for a minute, thinking. Finally, he asks, “Have you told them all of that?”

Kageyama stares blankly at him, shakes his head. Suga’s face lights up, a million watts bright.

“I think it would help if you did.”

Suga looks at him for a second, assessing, and then he claps him on the shoulder, lets his hand rest there for a few seconds, strong and warm. Kageyama watches his back as he walks back into the gymnasium, waving, calling out, “Keep at it, Kageyama, and I’m sure you’ll get through to them.” He knows logically that the vice captain is actually kind of short, for volleyball - nothing like Hinata or Nishinoya-senpai, but nothing special, either - but he thinks anyway that at times like this, Suga-senpai really does seem larger, somehow.

Later that night, lying in bed, Kageyama thinks about what Suga said, rolls over and grabs his phone, starts to type a series of messages.

“I’ve been asking you all this stuff because I think you’re a weirdly good setter, I guess”  
“I’ve never seen someone play like you, especially the flexibility thing, that takes a lot of skill”  
“And I guess I wanted to talk to you since you seem like the kind of person who doesn’t talk that much, or like, you don’t seem that good with people”  
“Sorry I don’t mean that you aren’t good with people in a bad way”  
“But you seem like you’re bad at talking to people”  
“I mean you run away every time people are trying to just have a normal conversation with you”  
“Not that that’s a bad thing”  
“I mean it’s not great”  
“It would be fine normally but why won’t you talk to me about volleyball? What kind of setter doesn’t want to talk about volleyball? Seriously?”  
“That’s not what I mean.”  
“The point is you’re bad at talking to people and I’m also not that good at talking to people and I guess lately I’ve been thinking I need to get better at it or I’m not going to be a good setter”  
“But the other setters I know are really GOOD at dealing with people and getting them to like them and bringing out the best in them and I don’t think I can do their way, not really.”  
“So I was thinking maybe you could help me figure it out”  
“Because you’re not sociable”  
“Talking to Hinata doesn’t count, Hinata could make friends with a tree”  
“You’re not sociable but you’re a good setter, and you’ve got your teammates’--”

Kageyama’s fingers stutter over the keys suddenly, embarrassed,

“Trust”  
“And stuff.”  
“Look I don’t need a novel just anything you can help me with”  
“I’ll help you too if you need it”

He shuts off his phone, feeling humiliated, and rolls over and goes to sleep.

When he wakes up the next morning and there’s no reply he feels like his stomach drops through the floor, briefly. He’s in a miserable mood all the way to school, and when he sees Hinata he feels everything boiling over, storms into his classroom and slams his hands onto the table.

“What the _hell_ is Nekoma’s setter--”

“Kenma,” Hinata corrects him, quietly, in a voice very reminiscent of immediately after he’d spiked a ball into the back of Kageyama’s head.

“ _Kenma’s_ problem?!” Kageyama passes Hinata his phone, practically throws it at him. “Sixty messages - over the span of two weeks! And not a single reply! Does he _know_ we have another practice match in a week? Does he _know_ he has to talk to me at some point?!”

“That’s weird,” Hinata muses, brow furrowing, looking through the messages. “This is definitely Kenma’s number, but he’s usually a pretty fast replier, even to mundane stuff.” He looks up, suddenly. “You told him who you were, right?”

Kageyama freezes. He can feel all of his righteous fury draining out of him.

“I might,” he hisses through gritted teeth, not moving a muscle, “have forgotten.”

Later, after everyone on the team has finished making fun of him, on the way home, Kageyama pulls out his phone once again. He stares at the unanswered stream of messages with a twisting, unfamiliar, nervous feeling in his stomach. Finally he opens a new message, types,

“Sorry, I should have said before that I’m Kageyama.”

His phone vibrates in response almost immediately, before he can even begin composing another message. He stares at the notification that there are new messages from ‘NEKOMA setter (kozume kenma)’ almost in disbelief. When he opens it, it just says,

“Oh, Karasuno’s setter?”  
“First-year setter, I mean, sorry.”  
“Did Shouyou give you my contact information?”  
“Sorry for ignoring you, I get a lot of spam.”  
“What’s up?”

And just like that, suddenly, Kageyama finds that he and Nekoma’s setter are texting friends.

They don’t talk nearly as much as Kenma and Hinata do, of course, but that’s fine; Kageyama isn’t interested in that many texts on a day-to-day basis, and he finds the Karasuno texts overwhelming to begin with. But when he asks Kenma questions, he finds that Kenma answers. His answers are to the point, and they’re often helpful, even though they’re usually totally different from what Kageyama would have thought.

In a week or so they head up to Tokyo for another practice match. Kageyama has a lot on his plate, and he doesn’t think much about all of it, but after everything is cleaned up and people have finished practicing, he runs into Kenma in the halls.

“Oh,” Kenma says, tone unsure, looking up at him as if trying to assess whether or not to bolt. “Kageyama, right?”

Kageyama nods. Before he would have immediately asked a thousand questions, but after messaging back and forth for a while he feels less desperate, and he simply responds, “Thanks for that link that you sent the other day.”

“Oh, yeah.” Kenma looks uncomfortable for a moment, like he doesn’t know what to say, shifts his gaze down to the floor. “Um, sorry for ignoring your messages.”

“It’s fine,” Kageyama lies.

“You just didn’t say who you were, and I thought maybe you were, like, some kind of weird volleyball-themed scam artist--”

“I said it’s fine,” Kageyama barks, less polite than before.

“Everyone made fun of me after,” Kenma continues, and Kageyama’s gratified that he doesn’t flinch at his raised voice; apparently he’s just naturally like this, rather than particularly nervous about talking to Kageyama. “You know, if it helps.”

Strangely, it does, a little bit.

They stand in silence for a second, both looking over toward the rooms where the teams are settling in for the night. Kageyama wants to go to sleep soon; he knows Kenma will probably talk for a while with Hinata and some of the other guys. It doesn’t bother him like it might have used to, somehow.

“I was hoping I’d catch you,” Kenma says, suddenly. Kageyama looks down at him, but Kenma’s gaze is still fixed on the light from the rooms up ahead, on the noise of their teams’ voices intermingling. “I thought there was one thing I really should say. That I didn’t. From your texts.”

Kageyama nods, expression serious.

“You asked me what to do about handling your team when you aren’t good at dealing with people.” Kenma continues, voice quiet. His tone is offhand, but it’s also not judgemental, and Kageyama finds himself listening seriously, like he does with the coach or his upperclassmen. “And you’re right that I’m not good at dealing with people, that you’re like me.” Kenma sighs, expression momentarily frustrated, and Kageyama finds himself mirroring the behavior. “But I don’t think that’s it, you know? I think it’s a weakness, you know, but I think it can also be a good thing.”

And then Kenma looks up and meets Kageyama’s eyes, smiles slightly. “I think your teammates know that about you. And they’re okay with it. The thing about it is,” and then he looks back toward the light, toward the voices, to the sound of Hinata and Lev arguing, Tsukishima’s snotty commentary faintly in the background, “Your team is your team. That kind of weakness, they already know about it. They’ll find a way to support you. Like when you drop a ball. They’ll cover for you.”

And then Kenma’s phone buzzes. He looks down and his grin spreads. He bows slightly at Kageyama, more a signal that he’s leaving than anything formal, and says, “Thanks for your most recent email about my dump toss. I hadn’t noticed I’d been twisting too much, but I’ll try to see if there’s anything I can do about it.”

And then he pads off without another word.

Kageyama clicks his phone screen on, looks at his six unread messages from Karasuno, wonders if there’s any point to everyone texting each other when they’re literally in the same room together? He pockets the phone with a shrug, heads after Kenma.


End file.
